


Pairwise

by lea_hazel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkwardness, Blindness, Canon Disabled Character, Community: homestuck1000, Licking, Multi, Other, POV Second Person, Royalty, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-05
Updated: 2011-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection for my homestuck1000 stories, under the hope that eventually there will be more than two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. By Your Side

The stars are heavy and bright. They hang so low, you fear they'll fall on your head, like everything else has, lately. And that's not ridiculous, not where you come from. Stars falling from the sky is practically all that ever happens, on Skaia, so why shouldn't it happen in this strange horrorland you've dwelt in all these years? You climb down from the hill and head for the valley, but the stars still loom over you. You guess you're pretty much stuck with them, now. 

It's not like another asteroid is going to very well take you to a new planet. That's the sort of thing that doesn't happen to someone twice, not even twice in four hundred and thirteen years. You sigh. Best make something out of this straggling wasteland. Oh, wait. Making something out of things is your job, now. No one else will do it for you. 

You stop halfway down the side of the hill and stare down at -- or gaze upon? -- the denizens of your kingdom. Two of them sit sleepily beside the fire, one draped over the other, both snoring. Your last denizen is lurking off to the right, watching. Is she watching those two, or you? You couldn't say. "Prospitian Monarch" she called you. This stupid dumb crown was her idea. She turns up her head and you see her black eyes focus on yours. Her vision is uncanny, miles above that of an ordinary Prospit peasant. 

You walk towards her hesitantly. She will try to encourage you. That is what she always does. You know this, because she's been your advisor for several hours already. Surely that is more than enough time to get to know someone. 

WQ does not disappoint. She tells you all about tough decisions, and the weight of the crown, and all that. She reminds you that your subjects love and adore you, that you are their Wise and Just Monarch. They will stand beside you, or rather behind you, because you are the leader and you have to stand up front. Or walk up front. 

You begin to suspect that WQ is getting flustered. Maybe you should say something. You interject gently to remind her that you know your duty, but thank you all the same. You have accepted the weight of the crown. You've shouldered your responsibilities. You've made it all the way across the board and all that. 

WQ coughs. 

You're babbling, aren't you? Well, how did you deal with everyone walking behind you? 

I didn't, she says, I had someone walking beside me. 

You remember the White King. He was always beside his Queen, in spirit if not in body. Perhaps you need a King? You pose this question to WQ, who smiles in her typical cryptic manner. 

That is a good idea, she says. Her Majesty should always have someone beside her. A consort. A guardian. An auxiliator. It would be a heavy burden, to be the Monarch's foremost confidante. Luckily she is well-versed in burdensome duties. 

You ask her if that means she's volunteering. 

She kisses you. 

You choose to take that as a yes.


	2. Pathetic

Everything has a taste. 

His old things taste like appleberry twist, just like she used to say. 

(It's hard to imagine how much she used to get on his nerves.) 

Tasting things turns out to be much more fun than seeing them. Everything is a game, a scavenger hunt with a rainbow of flavors as the prize. He wanders around, bumping into things, and instead of getting upset or angry he just sniffs whatever it is he bumped into, to find out what it is. 

(It's hard to remember how much  _everything_  used to get on his nerves.) 

"Hey, watch it, nooksniffer!" 

Karkat shoves his face away, but Sollux just smiles. Over to the left and just behind him, he can hear Terezi laughing. 

"When will I be able to navigate?" he shouts back at her. 

He hears her shuffling and clicking towards him. "Boo," she says, just behind his back, but he isn't startled anymore. 

"Gotcha," he says, and smiles again. 

He thinks she might be pouting. "It takes a while," she says. "You've only been doing this for less than a day." 

"How long did it take you?" he asks. 

"Two weeks. But you'll never be as good as me. I know all the smells, all of them." She cackles. 

"What do I smell like?" he asks. 

"Mustard," she says. 

"No, that's my text," he says. 

"Appleberry." 

"No," he insists, "that's my glasses and things. Did you ever smell me? Surely not all trolls smell the same." 

She frowns and grabs him by the shirt and licks his face, trying to get a better read. "What are you after?" she demands. 

You smell like poison hyacinths and twelfth perigee rain clouds. "What's wrong with you?" he asks, and shoves her away. "You can't go around licking people, you dumbfuck stinking windhole!" 

She doesn't say anything for a while so he just stalks away, kicking things until he finds the wall and follows it to the hallway. He glowers just in case anyone feels like talking to him and fumbles his way back to the computer lab. No sooner does he slump into his chair and pop on his headset then he feels a thump across the back of the head. "Terezi I said leave me alone!" 

"Hmph. I guess you solved the question which one of us is a bigger, more pathetic loser once and for all," says Karkat, and thumps him again. "See, I was the rattle-panned rot-mouthed unbelievable fucking nooksucker who let her get away. But you, you dumbfuck stinking windhole, you knew exactly what I did wrong, you told me all about it, and then you turned around and did the same fucking thing yourself." 

"What the fuck are you talking about, KK?" 

He thumps him a third time. "Get off your cushiony dual adipose lumps and go sniff out Terezi," he says, his voice rising. "You go, and you find her, and when you find her YOU BETTER GOG-DAMN WELL KISS HER!" 

"Bu--" 

"YOU KISS THAT GIRL THIS INSTANT!" 

Sollux snorts. "Fine." 

"Take this." Karkat shoves a stick into his hands. It has a cold, metallic shape at one end that's too complex for him to feel out with his fingers. "It's a dragon, fuckass. Remember? Terezi the dragon? Go find her. Now." 

He takes the cane and leaves before Karkat totally loses his shit. Navigating with the cane is hard. He starts to ponder how long it would take him to get used to that, in the event that Terezi kicks him in the face and decides not to continue teaching him to smell-see. Then he starts to wonder what Karkat would do if he came back to the lab without kissing the girl this instant, you dumbfuck nooksucking loser. Briefly he wonders about never seeing her again, and then decides to drop the thought down a deep hole and let it just fucking die there, already. 

Bumping his way through the corridors, he double-checks the room they were in before, even though he knows she wouldn't have stayed there. He sniffs the room one more time and shuts the door behind him and sniffs down the hall. There are a couple more doors, and then a turn. She's probably past the turn, down near that broken transportalizer that Kanaya or whoever trashed during all the drama. He moves down the hall slowly and carefully. What would he even say to her when he found her? 

Terezi, Karkat said to kiss you so that's what I'm doing. 

Terezi, I pity you in a matesprit way. 

Hey babe, let's fill some buckets. 

You smell like poison hyacinths. 

I can't live without you. 

Please say yes. 

He stops before the bend in the hallway and just stands there, leaning against the wall. This time he can't tell himself he's just being cautious, or trying not to embarrass himself in front of her. This time he's not moving at all. 

What would she even say to him? If he got lucky, she would drub him with her cane and make fun of him for the rest of their natural lives. She would tell everyone that he bent down on his knees and begged for her pity, that he was crying, that he threatened to kill himself. She would probably ignore him forever. Everyone would ignore him forever, except Karkat, who would thump him now and then to remind him that he won, he's a little less of a pathetic loser. 

He could always crawl into some dusty corner and wait for her to make the first move. Except that wasn't likely to work twice. Maybe if he did threaten, but no, he didn't need a moirail, he never needed one. Besides, he couldn't be like every other dumbfuck loser who let himself get moirail-zoned, no, begged for it even. That's pathetic. 

Lost in thought, he smells her coming just a couple of seconds too late to abscond. He takes a few steps back. 

She stops. "You know, I never believed Karkat about you," she says. "I always thought you were smarter than you let on." 

"Fuck, Terezi," he says, "what did you expect? You can't go and lick someone and expect them not to get a little flustered." 

Terezi snorts. "So, you have to be here for a reason. What is it that you want to tell me?" 

He shuffles his feet. "That," he says evasively. 

"Not to lick you?" He thinks she might be cocking her eyebrow, but he can't quite tell. 

"No." He hesitates. "That... that I was flustered." 

He hears her moving. "Would it be easier for you if we did this over Trollian chat?" she asks. 

He makes a face, but says, "Probably." 

Terezi snorts. "You really are a dumbfuck loser." 


End file.
